The Enugu State Government has revealed plans to establish 260 SMART schools in the 260 wards of the state; the SMART schools would be categorized into crèche, nursery, primary, and junior secondary schools.
Dr. Peter Ndubuis Mbah, Governor of Enugu State made this known during the celebration of the 63rd Independence Day Anniversary of Nigeria, held on Sunday, at the Michael Okpara Square, Enugu.
In his message delivered by the Deputy Governor, Ifeanyi Ossai, stated, “For the country to reach its full potential as a prosperous nation and the true giant of Africa as envisaged by the founding fathers, it must prioritize education as the cornerstone of nation-building.”
“We promised to build a kind of education where our children could compete globally, and every child has access to free and quality education hence on our assumption of office, we spared no time in putting our tools to work.”
“Today, we are almost done with the first of the 260 models schools proposed for each ward in the state; the pilot model in Owo community in Enugu is nearing completion.”
“The schools would be compartmentalized into crèche, nursery, primary and junior secondary school. In doing this, we identified the need to include students with special needs, and provisions have been made for them.”
The State Governor further stated that the school will have the basic infrastructures set up for a safe and convenient environment for the children; a functional clinic, ICT centre, e-library, science laboratories for both primary and junior secondary schools, tech laboratory, centre for robotics, studio, and interactive boards with uninterrupted electricity from renewable energy.
“We have also identified the need to have a one million litre underground storage water tank in aid of a clean and safe learning environment for our children.”
“The policy on education is tailored towards achieving quality education free for children in the state irrespective of their backgrounds.”
As no school can effectively function without quality and willing teachers, the Governor also vowed to improve teachers’ welfare through prompt payment of their emoluments.
“We are resorting to renewable energy as an alternative source of energy for these schools,” he said.
Also speaking at the event, Commissioner for Education, Prof. Nwabueze Mbah, said the government is moving away from the old-fashioned rote learning system to a project-based and practice-based learning system with a new curriculum targeted at domesticating science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics from primary one to junior secondary school three.
“To position Enugu as one of the top three states in Nigeria, grow our GDP to $30 billion per annum, and achieve 0% poverty headcount, we need a skilled workforce. Our schools must produce skilled graduates, not certificate holders,” Mbah emphasized.
Meanwhile, some citizens criticize the idea of building new schools in each of the 260 wards in the state when the government can refurbish the existing ones to the desired standard as the proposed SMART Schools; this they argued will not only save public funds and sustainability.
In his Twitter handle @MaziGomez, Mgbadike 1 of Enugu wrote, “Why not improve the quality of the existing primary schools instead of building new ones? Just add crèche and nursery to them.”
“And how sustainable is the so-called unity schools? What’s the plan for the maintenance and making sure they don’t end up like our existing primary schools?”
Supporting Mgbadike’s line of thought, Ozo Di Ebube wrote, “100% correct suggestion; what’s the point of building new schools when you haven’t made efforts to maintain the existing ones?”
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